SERA'S POV
"Mom?"
The word feels foreign on my tongue. I haven't said it in sixteen years—haven't had a mother since Morgana erased my memories and convinced me I was an orphan raised by the Order.
But the woman standing in Kael's doorway has my face. My eyes. The same crescent mark blazing silver on her shoulder.
She smiles, and it's like looking into a mirror that shows me twenty-five years into the future.
"Hello, little moon," she says, and her voice breaks something inside me.
Then she flickers like a candle flame and vanishes.
"No!" I lunge forward, but there's nothing there. Just empty air where my mother stood three seconds ago.
"It was a projection," Kael says quietly. He's still holding me, his arms steady around my trembling body. "Blood magic. Someone sent her image here."
"But she's dead." My voice cracks. "Morgana killed her sixteen years ago in the Silvermoon massacre. I read the reports. There were no survivors except—"
Except me. The infant with the crescent mark.
"Unless the reports were wrong," Declan says from behind us. His hand is still on his weapon, eyes scanning for threats. "Unless someone wants you to think she's alive."
My mind spins. Is this another one of Morgana's games? A trick to break me further, to make me desperate enough to complete the mission?
Or is my mother actually alive, and everything I thought I knew is another lie?
"I need to think," I gasp, pulling away from Kael. The bond protests immediately, a sharp ache in my chest. "I need—I need space. Please."
Kael's jaw tightens, but he lets me go. "My room is yours if you need it. But Sera—don't do anything reckless."
Too late. My entire existence is reckless.
I stumble out of his quarters and down the hallway, ignoring the curious stares from pack members. I need to find somewhere quiet, somewhere I can process everything without Morgana listening through my blood oath or Kael watching with those golden eyes that see too much.
I find an empty storage room on the third floor and lock myself inside.
The moment the door closes, I sink to the floor and let myself break.
My mother might be alive.
Lyra is my daughter, not my sister.
Morgana has been planning my death since I was born.
Kael is my fated mate, and I have six days to kill him or watch my child die.
And I can't warn anyone because Morgana is always watching.
I pull my knees to my chest and try to breathe through the panic. There has to be a way out. Has to be a plan that saves everyone.
But every scenario I run ends with someone I love dying.
Hours pass. I know because the light from the small window shifts from afternoon gold to evening purple. My body starts to ache—just small pains at first, like I've been sitting too long.
Then the pain gets worse.
It starts in my chest, a dull pressure that makes breathing uncomfortable. I shift positions, thinking I've just been sitting wrong, but the ache doesn't ease.
It spreads.
Within an hour, my entire ribcage feels like it's being squeezed by invisible hands. I try to stand, to walk it off, but my legs shake and the room spins.
The mate bond. This is the bond punishing me for being away from Kael.
"No," I whisper, bracing myself against the wall. "I just need a few more hours. Just need to think—"
But the bond doesn't care about my plans. It doesn't care that Morgana is watching, that I need space, that proximity to Kael makes everything more complicated.
It only knows that my mate is floors away, and every second apart is agony.
Two more hours pass. The pain is fire in my veins now. My wolf—barely awake after twenty-three years of being suppressed—is howling in my mind, clawing to get to Kael.
Go to him. Need him. Hurts hurts hurts—
"Shut up," I gasp to the wolf. "We can't. If we go to him, if we get close, the bond will complete itself and then—"
And then what? Then I'll be fully mated to the man I'm supposed to kill? Then Morgana will know I've chosen him over the mission?
Or then I'll finally feel whole for the first time in my life?
I hate that the third option is the most tempting.
Three hours. Four. Five.
I can't breathe properly anymore. Can't think through the pain. My vision is blurring at the edges, and I'm shaking so hard my teeth chatter.
The bond is killing me. Slowly, agonizingly, it's tearing me apart from the inside.
Just before the six-hour mark, the door crashes open.
I'm too weak to even lift my head, but I know who it is before he speaks. The bond recognizes him, and the pain eases just a fraction.
"Stubborn," Declan mutters, crouching beside me. "The Alpha said you'd try to tough this out. Idiot move."
"Don't—" I try to protest, but I can't form words anymore.
Declan doesn't wait for permission. He lifts me like I weigh nothing and carries me out of the storage room, down the hallway, toward Kael's quarters.
With every step closer to my mate, the pain lessens. My lungs expand. My vision clears. The wolf in my mind stops screaming.
By the time Declan kicks open Kael's door, I can almost breathe normally again.
Kael is pacing near the window, but he spins the moment we enter. His eyes go wide, then narrow with barely controlled rage.
"Six hours," he says, his voice deadly quiet. "You made yourself suffer for six hours because you're too proud to—"
"She collapsed," Declan interrupts, depositing me on Kael's bed. "Found her unconscious in the east wing storage room. Another hour and the bond might have killed her."
Kael's expression shifts from anger to something that looks like fear. He crosses the room in two strides and sits on the edge of the bed, close enough that the bond sings with relief but not touching.
"You can't do that again," he says. "The incomplete bond is already torture. Forcing distance makes it worse."
"I needed to think," I manage to say. My voice is hoarse.
"Then think here." Kael's hand hovers over mine, not quite touching. "I'll give you space, silence, whatever you need. But I won't watch you kill yourself to avoid me."
He's right, and I hate it. The bond won't let me have distance. Won't let me plan alone. Won't let me do anything without him near.
"I'll leave you two to work this out," Declan says stiffly. He pauses at the door, looking back at me with suspicion still clear in his eyes. "For the record, I still don't trust you. But the Alpha has chosen to give you a chance, so I'll respect that. Don't make me regret it."
The door closes behind him, leaving Kael and me alone.
The silence stretches. I should say something. Should explain, apologize, do anything but lie here feeling the bond knit me back together.
"Your mother," Kael says finally. "The projection. I've been researching how it was done."
I force myself to focus. "And?"
"Blood magic projection requires a living source. The caster has to be alive to send their image." His golden eyes meet mine. "Sera, if that was really your mother, she's not dead. She's been alive this whole time."
Hope and horror war in my chest. "But the reports—"
"Could be lies. Like everything else Morgana has told you." Kael pulls a book from his desk. "There's a spell. Old Moon Blessed magic. It can fake death so completely that even other magical beings can't detect life. If your mother used it during the massacre—"
"She could have survived." My heart is racing. "But then why didn't she come for me? Why let Morgana raise me as a weapon?"
"Maybe she couldn't. Maybe Morgana bound her somehow." Kael hesitates. "Or maybe she's been watching you this whole time, waiting for the right moment to reveal herself."
The right moment. Like when her daughter discovers she has a child she never knew existed and is being forced to choose between her mate and her daughter's life?
"If she's alive and she's been watching," I say slowly, "then she knows about Lyra. About what Morgana plans to do."
"Yes."
"So why appear now? Why show herself when I'm in the middle of—" I cut myself off. Morgana might be listening.
But Kael understands. "Maybe she has information you need. Maybe she can help break the blood oath. Or—"
"Or maybe it's another trap." I close my eyes. "I can't trust anything anymore. Every truth turns into a lie."
Kael's hand finally touches mine. The contact sends warmth flooding through my body, chasing away the last of the bond-pain.
"Then don't trust," he says. "Question everything, assume nothing, and prepare for betrayal. That's how I've survived three hundred years."
"Sounds lonely."
His smile is sad. "It is. But then you walked into my territory, and for the first time in centuries, I had something worth protecting more than myself."
The confession hangs between us, heavy and terrifying.
"I'm still supposed to kill you," I whisper. "Six days."
"I know."
"And you're just—okay with that?"
"No." Kael's grip on my hand tightens. "But I'd rather have six days with you fighting the bond than six days without you at all. We'll find a way to save Lyra. To break the oath. To stop Morgana. And if we can't—"
He doesn't finish, but I hear what he's not saying. If we can't save everyone, he'll make sure I survive even if it costs him everything.
The mate in me wants to melt at the devotion. The assassin in me knows it's a weakness Morgana will exploit.
"Stay here tonight," Kael says. It's not quite a command, not quite a question. "The bond needs proximity to heal properly after what you just put yourself through."
Every logical part of me screams to refuse. Staying in his room, in his space, will only make the bond stronger. Will only make killing him harder when the time comes.
But the wolf in my head is exhausted. My body is drained. And the bond is still fragile enough that another separation could actually kill me.
"Fine," I agree. "But you're sleeping on the floor."
Kael's laugh is quiet and genuine. "Deal."
He grabs spare blankets and makes a nest beside the bed. I watch him move through the room, comfortable and careful, and something in my chest aches that has nothing to do with the bond.
I could fall for this male. Could let myself believe in the possibility of a future where I'm not a weapon, where I'm allowed to want things, where I choose love instead of duty.
But futures are for people who survive.
And I have six days to figure out if I'm one of them.
I'm just starting to drift off when the crescent mark on my shoulder blazes with sudden heat.
I bolt upright, gasping. Kael is on his feet instantly, eyes scanning for threats.
But the threat isn't in the room. It's in my head.
My mother's voice, clear as crystal, speaking directly into my mind:
"The Oracle lied, little moon. Lyra is not your daughter. She's your twin sister—and Morgana has been planning to sacrifice both of you since the day we were born."
The connection severs, leaving me shaking.
Not my daughter. My twin.
Which means I'm not sixteen years older than Lyra.
Which means everything—EVERYTHING—the Oracle said was a lie designed to break me.
"Sera?" Kael's hand is on my shoulder. "What just happened?"
I can't answer. Can't breathe. Can't process.
Because if Lyra is my twin, then who did I give birth to sixteen years ago?
And where is that child now?